Meanwhile, Asai Kenichi's solo album PIL is coming out on January 16th

PIL features Watanabe Keiichi (the bassist from JUDE). Since Asai Kenichi and Watanabe Keiichi were the core members (JUDE didn't always have the same drummer), this is effectively another JUDE album - the first original one since 2005.

CD Japan saying that PIL is "the first Asai Kenichi album in 4 years" is really downplaying the significance of it. Asai Kenichi and Watanabe Keiichi were always great together no matter what support they had, so I'm more optimistic about this than I was about PONTIACS.

If they follow up with a PIL tour (with plenty of opportunity to play other songs), that could very well be even better than the album. I've always suspected that Asai Kenichi's solo-career was a more loosely-staffed JUDE, and now it's practically official - even if only for a brief moment. They probably won't be able to get the Skarapara drummer on a tour, but in light of the Sphinx Rose tour (featuring Shiino Kyoichi on drums) and this album, Asai Kenichi clearly has access to everyone he would need to reassemble JUDE as it was during the Highway Child era. It might be under the "Asai Kenichi" name, but so was the DEVIL single. It doesn't really matter what the partnership is called. What matters is how awesome it's going to be.

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You know Tokyo Jihen is a supergroup, when you can't blame most of the members for wanting to pursue other projects.

What would be a good primer/intro to Asai Kenichi? I've like the bits and pieces I've heard so far. He's released a ridiculous amount of material.
Does the Best of Kenichi Asai album include stuff from Blanket Jet City/JUDE/Sherberts stuff as well?

If you find a CD in his name, it will only be solo-career material. Each of his bands were signed to different record labels, and sometimes they jumped labels. Until recently, you couldn't even get any one compilation or anthology spanning Blankey Jet City's overall career, because 1991-1995 was owned by EMI while 1997-2000 was owned by Universal. Then Universal bought out EMI, and thus the "Complete Singles Collection" (released on 2013.03.27) can span the whole timeframe, but that's just one band. All bets are off (about which facets of his career we'll get material from) when we start talking about concert DVDs (just like with Shiina Ringo), even though that crosses over the record labels in a way that the studio releases typically wouldn't.

Start with BANG (Blankey Jet City's 2nd album), and if that doesn't do anything for you, then probably none of his other albums will. I'm not saying that's his best one or that you have to like everything on it, but it's a good test.

If you want a mix of material from different bands, the best release for that is Johnny Heaven, his first solo-career concert DVD. At that time his solo-career only consisted of one album, so the concert included nearly an hour worth of material from his other bands. I wouldn't say that Johnny Heaven is his most satisfying performance or setlist, but it ranks really high up there, and it certainly gets the job done if you're trying to become acquainted with several facets of his career.

Interchange Coconuts is my favorite concert DVD. Although officially a JUDE release, it has the drummer from AJICO and the keyboardist from SHERBETS, plus there's little bits of material from Blankey Jet City and SHERBETS. Not the most career-crossing setlist for a new listener, but I think it's Asai Kenichi's best performance on DVD.

By the way, Kiken Sugiru (the solo-career A-side with backing vocals from Shiina Ringo) is consistently disappointing each time he performs it live, because Shiina Ringo is never there, and the guitarwork in the studio recording was done under very controlled conditions which can't be duplicated live. Kiken Sugiru is very much a studio song, which isn't true about most of his solo-career (or BJC/JUDE/AJICO) songs. SHERBETS is mostly a studio band, while the rest of the bands are great either way.

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You know Tokyo Jihen is a supergroup, when you can't blame most of the members for wanting to pursue other projects.